The driver of a Tube train blown up in the July 7 bombings desperately tried to get help to his passengers – but was repeatedly told it was ‘only a power surge’, the inquest heard yesterday.

Ray Whitehurst said he and a colleague made a total of four calls for help to London Underground operators, telling them a bomb had exploded on the train near Edgware Road and medical assistance was needed.

But they kept getting the same answer, the inquest heard – and at one stage they even appeared to have been hung up on.

The Tube driver said: ‘I informed the signalman a bomb had gone off on my train and he said ‘no, it’s all right, don’t worry about it, it’s only a power surge’.

‘I asked (him) to inform emergency services and get me assistance down there and told him that the second carriage just didn’t seem to exist any more.’

After leaving his cab, he bumped into another train driver, Dave Matthews, who had approached the bombed train.